THE TOOTHBRUSH TWINS

Far away in the East, in a wooden shack, the Old-Eye sat with a crystal ball clutched in her frail hands. The crowd held its breath as she made plain the fate of the world.  She spoke in a trembling, raspy voice:

Amidst hardship and pain,

Poverty and fear -

The birth of two boys,

In the same month and year.

Only four days apart,

But a thousand miles between -

One will make the world laugh,

The other will wipe it clean.

***

Charlie Chaplin: 16 April 1889; South London

Adolf Hitler: 20 April 1889; Austria-Hungary.